The White Laser

Overview

Name: The White Laser (aka [REDACTED])

Location: Laser Cutting Area

Status: Operational

Training: Required

Slack Channel: #help-laser-pew-pew

Owner: denhac

denhac owns two CO₂ Laser Cutters. Both have 23″ x 35″ bed (600 mm x 900 mm) cutting area. They’re available for member use after training. Our main goal with this training is to ensure that members who are new to the tool don’t end up breaking the machine. This page will talk about the machine itself, the required training involved, and resources available to you to make the experience as best it can be.

General Info

After many repairs and completely rewiring a new controller in the white laser cutter is ready to use!

If you’re trained on Blue you can use White. Read this first.

• Same focus tool: 3.7mm
• Nozzle moves instead of the bed. First loosen the lock screw, then use adjustment screw or move nozzle up and down with your hand to focus. Retighten locking screw.
• Yellow origin button is in center of arrow keys
• Roughly same capabilities and speeds as Blue. Blue is a 80W laser vs White is 70W. In theory white may be have some advantages including more precise faster speeds and slightly smaller beam width.
  • Try settings ~25% more power and a bit slower. 
  • Blue ⅛” birch: 35mm/s, 50% =>  White: 25mm/s, 50%
• No disable laser “nuclear launch key”. Has lid open safety features.
• The laser will not fire if the chiller does not have power. If you’re having trouble with the white laser, check that the chiller has power.

Max power: 50%
Min power: 13%
Max material thickness: ¼”. Recommended ⅛”. Blue is going to be better for ¼”. White may take multiple passes.
Recommended fill speed: 300mm/s

Training

The Laser Cutter Authorization Training must be completed before using The White Laser. The authorization training covers basic operation, safety, setup, usage, monitoring, shutdown & clean-up, and troubleshooting.

Safety

The laser cutter is an exciting and very useful tool. However there are safety precautions that should be taken when using this machine. It uses a concentrated beam of high power laser radiation to vaporize away material to cut and etch. It is capable of catching materials on fire very quickly. It is capable of causing serious burns, severe eye damage, and blindness. 

• Never operate with the case open! Safety lockout switches always prevent this in theory.
• Do not operate the laser cutter unattended! 
• Make sure you understand what materials are safe to cut! Review the Allowed Laser Cutter Materials page before cutting any materials in the laser cutters.

Burn and Fire Hazards

1. This device uses a Class 4 Laser and is capable of producing severe injuries. It takes literally a millisecond to create a deep burn and significant tissue damage.
2. Never operate the machine with lid open. The window in the lid absorbs the specific wavelength of light created by the laser tube and is safe to watch through. We also have special glasses for that extra level of protection.
3. This device can ignite materials quickly and should never be operated unattended. DO NOT walk away from the laser cutter.
4. Make sure you are familiar with the location of the fire extinguisher when operating the laser cutter. There is a special halon fire extinguisher that is safe to use with the laser. Other fire extinguishers may cause damage to the machine.

Keep our Laser Happy

• Do not use power settings above 50% for The White laser. Exceeding this soft limit overvolts the tube and burns out the gasses inside which greatly reduces the tube’s lifespan. There’s no hardware limit preventing it, but this is the equivalent or redlining your car. Our software automatically throttles down to this number but it’s best practice to only type in the max.
• Monitor the temperature gauge on the chiller, especially on longer jobs. If temps go above 24℃ pause the job and wait for it to cool off before continuing. Under normal circumstances our chillers always keep the temps cool but sometimes they break.
• If you notice reduced cutting power or things feeling weird, stop using and post in #help-laser-pew-pew slack. If cuts are requiring high power and/or multiple passes something is wrong with the device or your material/settings. 
• If you have questions, are uncertain about anything, or may have accidentally bumped something out of alignment please post in Slack #help-laser-pew-pew. We want to know about and proactively fix and prevent potential problems.

Machine Maintenance

tldr: Don’t try to do anything you have not been specifically trained for. Instead, post on #help-laser-pew-pew if anything seems amiss.

Eventually, this machine will break in some form or fashion. Most likely, it’ll be the laser tube expiring, but we might also damage the mirrors and they need to be cleaned or replaced. Unless you have been explicitly authorized to do maintenance on the machine by someone who is themselves authorized to do maintenance, DO NOT open any of the side panels, mess with any of the settings on the machine, or try to fix whatever problem you’re seeing. Please just let us know about it. If you’re a member of the space and are interested in being authorized to repair the machine, we can discuss that.

If you are unauthorized, any attempt to repair the machine when broken, whether successful or not, will be treated negatively. Please just don’t do it.

Files & Resources

Links to User Guides and other PDFs are embedded in the specifications table below. Detailed PDFs and other resources for the laser cutters can also be found on denNAS in the SIG Laser Cutting folder.

Specifications

History

• 2022-08: The White Laser cutter is ready for use